


thick skin and an elastic heart

by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Captivity, Fantasy, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:09:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/autoeuphoric
Summary: The wind lifted Damen’s hair in a wild tousle of loose curls. His gaze traveled from Laurent’s face, moving lower. He said, “I could throw you over the back of my horse.”Laurent felt a shockingly crystalline pulse of dizzy fear, quickly subsumed as a prickle of heat swept down his chest. He focused on keeping his eyes clear, impassive. But even as he responded, he imagined how it would be.





	thick skin and an elastic heart

**Author's Note:**

> i was going through my word docs and discovered this, a fic i had apparently finished but just never posted. hmm. 
> 
> warnings for typical captive prince stuff.

He had been a slave for near on two months, and Laurent had yet to see a true sign of submission in Damen of Akielos. Even on his knees, or beaten and bleeding on the cross, there was resistance in him, a diamond-hard chip of something tense and immovable. 

Laurent had made note of it at once, and even amidst his fury at Damen’s very presence and continued obstinance, he had admired it. There was plenty to admire, once Laurent had let go his pride enough to look for it. His military mind, his baffling sense of honor, his proficiency with a blade. The fact that, when Damen was nearby, Laurent never lacked for scenery. 

But now all that held his attention was the stiffness in Damen’s seat on his horse, the intent way he leaned toward the echoing clank of boots on granite, the creak of tack and passing wagons. His gaze, usually kept carefully neutral (Damen did not submit but he had learned caution) passed over Laurent, shrewdly assessing, the way a man might look over a well-bred horse he planned to sell.

If Damen meant to turn him over to the Akielon troop, Laurent would not be able to stop him. 

He could not will the tripping of his own heart to slow; he had long since given up trying. But he took measured breaths, imagining the air suffusing his blood, bringing clarity and calm. He watched Damen, saw the hard line drawn across his brow. The muscled shoulders and heavy build that made him resemble a caged animal when he was chained became something completely different when he was upright, armed and armoured. He looked like a conqueror. Damianos of Akielos. Prince Killer. Heir. Captive. 

There was real danger here. Laurent’s alliance with the Kyros of Delfeur was still tenuous, and even if he could trust Nikandros not to turn on him, these were not Nikandros’s men. And If Laurent was taken captive, he would be given to Damen. Bondage for bondage; Laurent himself could see the justice in it. Damen may not have yet realized his identity had long ago been divined, but that didn’t mean that everyone in his country was so blunt an instrument. Someone would realize that Laurent had known, that he had used their crown prince as a lashing post, a servant, a common armsman. 

Growing up in his uncle’s court had not been a wholly comfortable experience, but it had given him a thorough education in operating under perilous circumstances. Prolonged exposure to threat had settled into resignation, a careful, constant acknowledgement of danger; he could greet his unease and put it aside. 

They gazed at one another, the wind lifting Damen’s hair in a wild tousle of loose curls. His gaze traveled from Laurent’s face, moving lower. He said, “I could throw you over the back my horse.” 

Laurent felt a shockingly crystalline pulse of dizzy fear, quickly subsumed as a prickle of heat swept down his chest. He focused on keeping his eyes clear, impassive. But even as he responded, he imagined how it would be. 

Damen, spurring his horse, riding him down, knocking him to the dirt. His sword taken, his wrists held tight in one huge hand. He would be bound, dragged, thrown before the Akielons. Damen would not order him beaten, but neither would he tell them to be gentle. The journey would not be a comfortable one. Laurent imagined the high white cliffs of the Akielon capital, the heat, the perfumed air of the palace gardens. He had never been to Ios, but he had studied extensively and learned all he could of Akielon customs. In all things he had striven to know his enemy. He imagined himself in slave silks, face heavy with paint, arms encircled with gold, perhaps with the same cuffs Damen wore, struck off his wrists and reshaped to adorn his spoils of the oncoming war. 

It lingered in his thoughts even as Damen let the troop pass and they moved on. As Laurent hid himself and waited, as the Akielon outrider emerged from the underbrush and shot at his horse. He was temporarily occupied by the pain of his fall, the disorientation of suddenly finding himself flat on his back in the center of the stream. By the glitter of the six pounds of Veretian steal that pinned the soldier to the bank. 

Laurent knew the intricacies of his own mind the way a man knew the well-worn path between the village square and his own front door. He knew its shortcomings. Once a thought was trapped it would not be released until he had given it its due notice. It was stoked by the worry in Damen’s eyes, the tense, genuine fear in his voice when he’d gasped, “Are you alright?” and crouched in the water beside him, when he’d let his hands wander unselfconsciously down Laurent’s body, making sure he was still whole. Now that he could add ‘slinging broadswords’ to Damen’s list of admirable qualities. 

Damen would want to pay Laurent back for the indignities of the past two months. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe his shocking sense of honor extended to enemy princes with no hope of rescue or reprisal. 

Damen stoked the fire, hands wrapping around a stick, large but well-made. There was a tactile sensuality to his motions, a physicality that persisted even when Laurent had seen him laced tight in Veretian dress. He had all but implied he’d made use of slaves in Akielos. Undoubtedly he would have been kind to them, provided they were fittingly deferential, as Laurent knew all Akielon slaves were. At the least he would not have been cruel. 

He would not be cruel with him, Laurent thought. He would smile and praise and pet. Damen had wide, sensual lips that looked built to be pressed against warm skin, but Laurent experienced a failure of imagination when he tried to imagine Damen kissing him. Easier to focus on Damen pushing him to his knees or parting his thighs, hooking his legs up in the crooks of his elbows, keeping them spread with force-- 

He surveyed Damen stoically even as a flush overtook his cheeks and traveled down his neck. He was confident that the color would be disguised by the heat of the fire. Damen had refused to fuck Nicaise; not because he was a slave but because he was a child. Laurent was not a child. 

He felt warm silk crushed in his hands as he saw himself thrown down on his stomach, pressed flat by an irresistible weight, the terror of defeat clawing at him as rough fingers snarled in his hair, even as a hand soothed down his flank. The images swam before him as he stared into the flames--being used, claimed, taken on a bed scattered with cushions by the King of Akielos. 

He thought of the horror in that--being controlled, being overcome--and also the release. For one absurd, fragile moment, he let himself long for it. Then he laughed, softly but audibly, and Damen’s focus shifted from the flames back to him. 

It was an absurd scenario, debauched and ridiculous. Picturing himself being tied up and carried off by the barbarian, ravished under a southern sky. He knew it was nothing but a fantasy, but it made his pulse quicken regardless. Being a receptacle for pleasure, valued not for his mind but the assortment of his features and the shape of his body. Having his only true weapon, his mind, rendered worthless. 

No prince longed to be a slave, no master longed to serve, but the draw of not having to be relentlessly on guard, to not spend every moment ensuring he was steps, leagues ahead, not having to fear the worst happening because it already had. His only duty to lay back when it was required and be fucked. And if it was Damen doing the fucking-- 

He repressed the feelings that elicited, put them firmly under lock and key, drawing his knees up to his chest. It would be awful, doubtless. He was not the hero of some saccharine romance and he would be bored to the point of insanity in two days time, mind atrophied. This was simply a morbid thought experiment. 

Princes did not fair well in captivity. Damen knew that. Laurent had taught it to him.


End file.
